150 Chapter 147

It was Dean's turn to pipe up, "Going to a very public party is one thing. Actively exchanging favours is an entirely different one."

Harry looked around the compartment, before making eye contact with a silent Hermione, "And you? Don't you have anything to say Hermione?"

She looked distinctly uncomfortable, "I…I don't like bullies Harry. And Draco Malfoy is a bully."

Harry sighed.

Even he himself disliked dealing with Draco, but his own political goals demanded that he keep treating the younger Malfoy as an ally. His status as heir to what was quite possibly the most politically powerful family in Britain, and his dislike for his father made him the perfect individual to endear Harry to the traditionalist politicians, whose political power would be vital for Harry's eventual goals in the Ministry.

"I know," Harry said to his friends, "And I hear you guys, but you tell me. Isn't having him as a sort of acquaintance better than having him as an enemy? We do have to live in the same castle as him for six more years, and we can't do that with him trying to making our lives miserable all the time."

They had no reply to that.

"Tell you what," Harry said, "I'll go check out what's in Compartment 4B, and if I see anything off or suspicious, I'll just come back without doing anything. You guys know me. Would I ever do anything that'd get me in trouble?"

"Right. Tell that to the half-destroyed passage in the third floor" Terry snarked, and the mood in the compartment snapped back to normal.

"Hey!" Harry said with mock indignation, "That wasn't me! That was the deranged Defense professor!"

And with that comment finally diffusing the tension, he left their compartment, squeezed past the snack lady, and headed up the train corridor towards the path that led to the next carriage. The 4B compartment was all the way in the fourth carriage of the Express.

Entering the fourth carriage, he looked down the corridor, frowning at the familiar red-headed girl who was banging on the door of the compartment.

"Open the door! Open it! My brother is a prefect! Open it or else he'll get you!"

Quickly heading over to the door in question, he tried to peer in through the glass panes, but found them magically fogged over. Whoever was in there must have used some spell to do that to prevent people from, looking into the compartment. And a locking charm, he realized as he saw Ginny try to open the compartment.

"Mage Sight," he muttered, and took a look at the handle before deactivating his ability with a mental curse. This wasn't a locking spell whose counter he knew.

Looking back at Ginny, he realized she hadn't noticed him and was single-mindedly banging on the door.

"Ginny!" Harry said urgently, grabbing her by the shoulder and shaking the girl, who froze up the instant she noticed Harry, "Ginny! What happened? Why were you banging on the door? Who's inside?"

"Um…It…it's Lu-Luna. She's m-my friend." she said, her voice losing the nervousness as she started talking faster, "There were two of them. The g-girl and the b-boy just barged into the compartment. They saw her r-reading the Quibbler. So they started teasing her. When she t-told them that her father was the editor, they called her father an idiot, and when she tried to defend him they p-pushed me out and started hexing her!"

Bullies, Harry realized as he remembered what Quibbler was, before he looked up and down the corridor, "Where are the prefects? Why didn't you call one?"

"The P-prefects meeting doesn't end for another hour. Percy told me that I…I shouldn't disturb them…before he went to the meeting," she replied, looking very worried as she wrung her hands.

Ping!

Quest Alert!

Protect Luna from the bullies!

Reward,

3000 Exp

+40% relationship meter with Luna

Failure,

Blah blah blah. Death destruction insanity. The usual sort. Now accept the dang quest.

YES/NO?

Harry pressed yes as Gamer's Mind went to work at full speed. He needed to handle this right.

He knew how bullies functioned. Once they found an easy target, they'd lock onto that target for as long as they could. If the pair of bullies thought that this Luna girl would be an easy target, no matter how many times the prefects stopped them, they would keep picking on the girl.

He needed to make sure that they realized that this Luna girl was not an easy target.

For thinking psychologically and getting into the mind of the bully, you have gained +1 WIS.

A plan popped into his mind. Harry hesitated for a second. It wasn't going to be pretty.

Oh well. He had to let Malfoy's bullying pass in the name of his future goals, but he had no such compunction against taking care of these two.

"Ginny," he told the first year girl, "I want you to go get a prefect," Seeing the girl hesitate, he added, "They won't give you a hard time. I promise."

With a hesitant nod, the red-haired girl dashed towards the end of the carriage, heading towards the prefect's compartment.

With her out of the way, Harry made sure that nobody was watching before pulling out his invisibility cloak and fully covering himself. All the compartments in the express were almost exactly the same in terms of layout, so he should be able to apparate right into the compartment without any problems.

Now all he had to hope for was that the Laws of Inertia applied for apparition. Because if not…doing this inside a moving train was probably a very bad idea.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Harry spun on the spot, disappeared from one side of the door, and reappeared without a sound on the other side of the door, inches away from his initial spot.

Ping!

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